Fall Cleanup and Preparing Your Landscaping for Winter

Red, orange, yellow, and brown colors everywhere says It's fall time in your area. This year, don't dread the changing of the leaves and be prepared. A good fall cleanup is an important part of maintaining your landscaping investment. A little care in the fall will help prevent disease, and prepare your landscaping for optimal growth and color for the following year.

Unless you have a week to spend cleaning up your property, it will probably be best to hire a landscaping expert to handle most or all of your Fall Cleanup NJ, quickly and efficiently. Professional landscapers have tools and equipment that make preparing your property for winter a snap. I hear from my customers all the time that spending a few days raking last fall made them realize they had muscles they did not realize existed. Nothing but sore backs and wasted time to show for their effort.

Fear not, you have an expert landscaper on your side that will explain the services you need to be looking for to have your landscaping winning prizes next year.

1. It is very important to remove the leaves and fall debris from your Landscaping. Dead leaves and debris left around plants through winter and fall create a good habitat for insects and disease. Using best horticulture practices by a certified and trained landscaper you will see a noticeable difference in the color and growth in your plants next spring.

2. Fall is a perfect time to fertilize your lawn and plants. Fertilizing in the fall will strengthen your grass' roots, promoting lush growth next spring. Feeding your lawn during this period will also help prevent weed growth to stop dandelions in their tracks. Plants also benefit from a fall fertilization and you will notice more flowers and stronger more resilient plants next year.

3. Winterizing your irrigation systems are important to prevent breakage and major repair costs next spring. In areas where the winter frost reaches beyond the pipe depth it is a priority to get professional winterizing. A professional landscaper can ensure that there is no remaining water in your irrigation pipes. Even a trace amount of liquid can expand and break the PVC pipes resulting in costly repairs.

I hope this article will prepare you to make the right decision this fall and hire a professional landscaper to handle your fall cleanup. We can help keep your lawn and landscaping the envy of the neighborhood next year. Please support your local landscaper.

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How to Lift a Home

It is not uncommon to lift a house to remodel, adapt to a high-flood area or move one's house to a different location. Leaving this job to the professionals may seem like the easiest route, but it can get very expensive. There are some steps you can take to lift a home in the event you are considering taking on this task yourself.

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Hydraulic jacks
• 4-foot timbers
• 50-foot I-beams

 

• Turn off all utilities, such as gas, water and electricity. The last thing you want is a gas line to break during the process.

• Move into the crawlspace below the house to remove any water or gas pipes that are in the way.

• Remove any plaster, concrete or other material that is connecting the home to the ground or foundation.

• Place the I-beams into position under the home. The I-beams should be raised using hydraulic jacks, one at the end of each beam.

• Raise the house using the hydraulic jacks no more than 18 inches.

• Insert enough 4-foot timbers in the space by cross-stacking them. This cross-stacking is sometimes called cribbing.

• Raise the home 18 more inches and insert additional timbers for more cribbing.

• Continue to raise the home until it is about 12 feet off the ground or foundation. The final height will depend largely on the purpose of raising the home. If, for example, you want to build an additional floor underneath your house, you may need to raise it even higher.

 

House Lifts | Home Lifts | Move A House

Is Moving House Worth Your Sanity?

Moving house is a pain in the neck, but with the right forward thinking you can reduce the amount of pain and get it over and done with as quickly as possible.

Be sure that everything that you plan to move is ready to be put away as soon as you get to the new space. Try to have as much of your laundry clean and folded to be put directly into drawers when you get to your new space so that it's not sitting out taking up space on the floor. If you can find large mover's rubber bands, you can strap them across desks and cabinets so that you don't have to unpack individual drawers only to re-pack them when you get to your new space.

Be careful! Glass that is not securely wrapped in bubble wrap or paper may shatter, and items that are not tightly packed may be knocked around when moving. Also, as heavy as a desk or a shelf may be, it is heavier when the drawers and cabinets have not been emptied.

This leads to the next moving tip: be sure you have all of the necessary moving tools ready for the big day! If you hire a moving company, they will likely have hand trucks and floor carts for moving furniture and larger items. However, if you are moving yourself with little or no help, have your moving tools ready! Running to the hardware store the day of the move to get things you forgot to plan for takes time away from the ultimate goal: getting moved.

A good strategy is to start packing as early as possible, putting away your possessions that you do not immediately need or do not plan to use before you move. As you get closer to the moving day and you use items in your home, pack them as you decide whether they are ready to be moved or not. Keep a list of things you think of to pack, check, buy before moving, and other odds and ends that inevitably come up during moving.

Be sure to have plenty of garbage bags handy the day of the move as you will likely find yourself deciding whether or not it is worth bringing something to your new space. Be sure to check with your local ordinances about where it is legal to discard furniture and other appliances.

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7 Landscaping Ideas to Maximize the Use of a Small Yard

Landscape Design a small yard can be more difficult than deciding how to maximize a larger area. However, there are some helpful ideas and tips that can make the process easier.

1. Eye catching plants: Pick 3 or 4 truly unusual plants that will catch visitor's attention and move their eyes around the yard. This will make the yard seem larger because their eyes will travel over more area. Make sure the plants you choose are ones that you really like. In the end you are the one that will be spending the most time in your yard.

2. Plants that grow up instead of out: Use taller plants or flowering bushes in corners or the back of a flower bed to add interest and draw the eyes upwards. Rose of Sharon bushes are a good example of this, as well as some of the hybrid lilacs. You want to pick plants or bushes that will not fill outwards though as they will appear to take over your yard. Tall lilies or sunflowers would also work well to draw the eye higher and make your yard appear larger.

3. Confine plants so that they do not spread: Most garden designers love perennials like lilies, tulips, and irises. However, with a small yard you want to be sure to enclose the roots of these hardy perennial plants so that they to not spread and take over your flower beds. A piece of large PVC pipe cut in 12 to 18 inch lengths can be used for this. Bury it completely in the ground so that the top edge is just below the dirt and plant your flowers in it.

4. Potted plants: If your yard is walled or fenced you can expand your planting area with the use of hanging pots of flowers. Vines do really well in these and they will add to the restfulness of your yard by seeming to enclose you in a lush green retreat.

5. Planting boxes: Planting boxes attached to the wall of your house can also help to expand your available growing area. If you have windows overlooking your yard you get the added benefit of flowering plants right outside the screens. Try to find highly scented plants for the window box planters so that you can enjoy the fragrance all through the house.

6. Wall mounted water feature: Most people find the sound of running water to be relaxing. With a small yard many people feel that they do not have room to add a water feature. However, there are many varieties of wall mounted fountains or water walls that take up very little space and still give you the benefit of the sound and look of moving water.

7. Layering: Layer plants that come up early in the spring like crocus and daffodils in with plants that will not appear until later. Not only do you get to enjoy some fresh color early in the year, you can actually have two plants growing in almost the same space. By the time later plants begin to grow the early bloomers can be cut back without damaging them.

These are just a few ideas that can make landscaping in a small area easier and provide a summer of beautiful color for you.

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Learn More About The Best House Moving Process!

If you have to vacate the current place for some reason, few are tired of the current neighborhood and needed a new one. But these people could not afford losing their old house due to sentimental and historical values so they prefer moving the whole thing instead.

A house moving project is not a very easy one and it is important that one understands how the whole process is done. It actually needs several experts. Moving companies have people who specialize in different things like jacks, timbers, lifts, and of course, electrical and plumbing. The transportation must also be part of their services as well as the reconstruction of the new foundation at the new location.

The house moving company you hire will delegate workers who specialize in different tasks. The electrical wirings are traced and disconnected right from the power line sources. The whole plumbing structure is disconnected as well. Once the disconnection is completed, an excavation is made to separate walls and flooring from the foundation. This is considered to be the hardest process and this may take several days to weeks to finish, depending on the size of the house and the type of foundation the house has.

During the actual house moving process, diggers place openings where the steel beams and hydraulic jacks will be inserted. These steel beams will serve to bear the weight of the whole house during the move. The jacks are placed under these beams that will allow movement to lift the house. These hydraulic jacks are linked together to ensure that the house is lifted on a proper level. After the house is lifted, sliding beams are used to slide the house up the truck that will transport the house. The work does not end with the transportation. The contractor must ensure that the new foundation in the new location is completely done before the house is mounted on it and finishing touches are done. Plumbing and electrical wirings must also be reconnected before the project is considered done.

House moving means moving an old house to a new location. A house moving project is not a very easy one and it is important that one understands how the whole process is done.   

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